Volume Two in the Secret Identities comics anthology series has finally dropped and is now available. I contribute a few pages, illustrating writer Jamie Ford’s EC Comics pastiches. Here’s one of my mock covers that appear in the book, done in classic Tales From The Crypt style, or as close to it as I can get, at least.

I get a kick out of the idea of “Chuckie Chan”. Created with Sketchbook Pro and Photoshop.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

Wednesday, January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. To participate, we formed the Comic Creators for Freedom– a group of over 100 comic book creators who volunteered our artistic talents to raise money and awareness for this cause. You may not know it, but there are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year. Unlike slavery in the past, what is happening today is happening in secret. It won’t end until awareness is raised, and people like you and me take a stand.

So here’s what we did: each creator contributed an original drawing of one of our own female characters, and combined them into a single wallpaper image! The wallpaper features characters fromall over the web, including Girls with Slingshots, The Dreamland Chronicles, Kukuburi, Earthsong Saga, Looking for Group, Love and Capes, The Dreamer, and tons more! Donate today to download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper.

The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from Monday January 9th – 20th. All proceeds will be split evenly between Love 146 and Gracehaven House- two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this crime.

In time for the new Robert Downey sequel, IDW Publishing has released Curious Cases of Sherlock Holmes, reprinting various Holmes comics published by Caliber Press in the 90s, including Adventure of the Opera Ghost written by Steven Phillip Jones and illustrated by yrs truly. So for any Holmes fans who have not had the chance to pick up this fun and exciting and well-drawn pastiche featuring Holmes meeting the Phantom of the Opera, what are you waiting for? Daddy needs some royalties!

In other news, as many of you hopefully know by now, I have a webcomic/serialized graphic novel titled Rose Madder, my deconstructionist romance comic. This year, I am participating with dozens of other webcomics creators in the Comic Creators For Freedom wallpaper project, helping to raise money to end human trafficking. Here’s the B&W version of my contribution to their benefit wallpaper, this year themed “Epic Snowball Fight”.

You can see the full-color version here. Rose will be included into the benefit wallpaper featuring the characters of all the webcomics contributing to the project–and webcomics creators can still be a part of it, as the deadline for contributions is December 31. Click on the Comic Creators For Freedom link above for more details.

Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted, I thought I’d take the opportunity to mention my little webcomic, Rose Madder, my weekly serialized graphic novel. In about a month or so Chapter Four begins, which introduces a bunch of new characters and is a hoot to boot. So this is a good time to catch up on the previous installments if you haven’t already.

Right now, the good people from Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology are auctioning off various items, including the artwork above by me, for Japan relief. 100% of the proceeds from the eBay auction goes to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. The drawing features Haruko Haruhara of my fave anime FLCL on her Vespa, inked with permanent markers and colored with Dr. Martin’s dyes on 11×14, 140 lb. watercolor board.

The high bid for the above artwork also gets a bonus drawing of Haruko with the characters of my webcomic Rose Madder, Rose, Tarpit LaBrea, and Lucy Purr the cat, also in full color on 11×14 watercolor board:

It’s for a good cause, and again, 100% of the bid goes toward the Japan relief fund. So bid high and bid often, and you can get some nice artwork in the process. I rarely work non-digitally these days, so as far as art from myself goes, this is a rarity. Go on, you know you want to!

After a stretch of being too busy to contribute anything to the Whitechapel forum in a while, I managed to squeeze this in for a new installment of Remake/Remodel, reinterpreting vintage public domain comics characters. This week, it’s the Magician From Mars:

In the future, Jane Q-X 3 Gem, the Magician from Mars, is born to a Martian father, Jarl 6EM35, and a Earthling mother, Jane Faro. When she was a baby, she was accidently exposed to “cathode” radiation, which is deadly to humans but which Martians are naturally immune to. Because she was a hybrid of the two, the radiation had an unexpected effect of boosting her brain power to the point where she was capable of changing reality with a thought..

At 16 years old, she lost both of her parents and was raised by her Aunt Vanza, who refuses to allow the girl to travel to Earth. Eventually, she found life on Mars too boring, so she escaped from the “Supersteel Room” prison her aunt locked her in and took passage on a ship to Earth. There, she decided to use her reality-warping abilities to fight evil and oppression. Eventually, she came head-to-head with the Hood, leader of an evil organization with the goal of “Universal Domination.”

I rushed a bit through the drawing, so it’s a little sloppy in places, but overall I’m happy with the end result. As usual, drawn with Sketchbook and Photoshop. Click on the image to see it at full size.

Here’s something I was working on for the Whitechapel Remake/Remodel series, where forum members try to visually update obscure public domain comics characters. I never got around to finishing this one for a character named The Bat. I guess I was going for a retro body-horror-comedy kind of thing…no wonder I never finished it!

As usual, work done digitally, using Sketchbook. Click on the image to see it at a more readable size.

Here’s more art–as promised–from the 1995 Caliber Press book Tatters, written by Steven Jones and illustrated by yrs truly. Seen above are the characters Rose and Stern, whom I subjected to some brazen stunt casting (Vincent Vega’s goatee added on by Caliber editorial). Below is another page from the book; click to see at full size.